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The old woman held up her palm to quiet him. “Now that Grayson’s here, I know where to bring you. It’s for the best, Connall, dear. Any more time together and you’re more likely to do something foolish, like try to stay.”

No! Sarah panicked. She could not mean to take him right this moment.

“Sarah will come with me.”

“No,” Lady Blagden corrected. “She cannot.”

“I won’t leave without—”

Sarah covered her mouth with both hands to stop from crying out when the air began to blur.

But Conn did not disappear. In truth, half of him did.

To her mad eyes, it looked as if his top half was sticking out of a hole in the wall, facing her.

His legs and part of his waist were gone—into another time.

No. It could not be. He was holding onto 1795, fighting with every ounce of passion he possessed to stay with her, as he said he would.

“Conn,” she said softly, resolved to take this moment to say farewell. He needed to let go. “You have taken hold of my heart. I love you.”

“Sarah!”

Even his voice did not sound the same. It was fainter. But her words gave him even more strength to hold on, to try to pull himself out.

“Sarah—” His breath came shorter. He was exhausted from his heedless struggle against something sucking him in like a hungry dragon. “I’ll come…for…you.”

Sarah stood facing the solid wall.

Beside her, Conn’s sister held her up when Sarah began to collapse. “Mrs. B.?” she shouted angrily out to the air. “Was that necessary?”

Sarah held out hope that Lady Blagden’s mind could be changed and she would bring him back. But when hours turned into days, her hope began to fade.

It was not as if he were far off, even across an ocean and he could find a way back. No. This was finding a way across time. The more she thought about it, the more hopeless she became.

She barely visited the marquess as the days went on.

In fact, he was the last person she wanted to see when he woke up.

She spent an hour or two with Will each day but their mother was there all day.

When Sarah found time, she escaped them all and stood on the rooftop between the battlements, her gaze spread over the estuary.

When he was well enough to leave his bed, Dartmouth’s rightful heir would sit in the chair previously occupied by his father. If he returned to the future, he would see another man take his title.

Sarah would be here for it all. Where else was she to go? She would be expected to marry. But she would never completely give up hope in seeing Connall Darling again.

She prayed several times each day that she would. Did seeing him in her head count? He never left her thoughts, not during the day and not while she slept. She did her best in front of her mother and Will to appear calm and well, but every time she saw Aria, she burst into tears.

How could she love a man so quickly? And how could it be reciprocated just as speedily? Were they always meant to be together but lost in time?

As she had done a dozen times before since he was taken, she began to cry.

“The last time I saw you crying, your tears were for me when I was leaving to fight the French.”

She spun around to see the marquess behind her. When he began to cough, she hurried to him but he held up his hand to stop her and smiled.

“Are your tears finally for someone else?”

She did not want to see the man she thought so marvelously special fade in the shadow of a man who was gone. But Grayson was here; the very first friend she ever had.

“Yes,” she told him quietly. Then with more passion. “Yes, they are for Aria’s brother.” She did not speak his name, as if not doing so could make him less real.

“I miss his voice.”

Her friend nodded.

“Grayson?”

“Yes, little sister, what is it?”

That was what she was to him, his little sister. She smiled for the first time in days.

“Can you bring him back?”

“No,” he began to shake his head.

“I know you can,” she corrected him. “All they talk about is how powerful you are. I already know you can communicate with animals. I have never asked you for anything, not even your favor. I will never ask again because I know my place. But I am asking now. Bring him back to me, or bring us to him. Please.”

The marquess cast his doubtful gaze on her and swallowed. “Us?”

*

Us. Did Grayson think she would go anywhere without her mother and Will?

Still, Sarah had known it was asking much.

If one person was not permitted to flitter around time, three would mean a harsher punishment.

And would Will even want to go? What about Harry and her father’s bodies?

Would her mother leave with them in the past?

How could Sarah leave her mother behind?

None of it mattered. After that day, Grayson and Aria had left and she had not heard anything from her lifelong friend since.

He left without giving up his title, which left Sarah and her mother with more responsibilities than they had ever had before.

Will had returned to the Gable homestead and life—the same, but different—went on.

Sarah still found time to stare out over the estuary as the weather grew warmer, but she didn’t cry as often.

One morning, when she thought it was too early for anyone to be outside, she spotted two people walking in the sand.

They carried bundles under their arms. She narrowed her eyes on them.

Was that…Grayson and Aria? Her heart began to race.

What were they doing here? Did something happen to Conn?

Without wasting another instant to ponder it, she turned and raced into the castle, down the stairs, and out the doors.

She quickly grew closer to them, and was relieved to hear them laughing together.

“Your Grace,” she practically huffed at his back. How could she not hear a peep out of him all this time? Could he not have done this one thing for her? “What brings you back?”

He didn’t smile. He didn’t need to. “We’re here to host a celebration. A beach party you might say, for the new duke of Dartmouth.”

“I see, you have finally chosen then. What do you carry? Here,” she said to Aria and pulled the packages out of her arms. “What is all this?”

“That is ‘ketchup’,” the marquess told her, pointing to an odd jar of red liquid in one of the bags. “And that one is ‘mustard’. It’s pungent.”

“What?” she uttered. When had he become so chatty?

“And those,” he pointed to a lump of something ridged and pink, “are hot dogs. Wait. Just wait.” His eyes half closed in delight.

Sarah turned to Aria and without any pretense or real interest in what was in the bags. “How is your brother? Is he well?”

Aria smiled as if she had a dozen secrets and she had to blurt them out or go mad. She tossed a quick, loving glance at the marquess and then before he could speak, she took the packages from Sarah’s hands and set them in the sand.

“He’s been a miserable retch since Mrs. B. snatched him away. He hasn’t spoken to her since that day.”

“Oh no, Aria,” Sarah cried. “I do not wish him to be so unhappy.”

Aria smiled at her and nodded. “It’s been a good thing. Between Conn and Mrs. B’s beloved grandson here brooding the moment she entered a room, their unhappiness worked well in your favor.”

Sarah’s heart raced and made her feel lightheaded. Her favor? Her favor meant being with Conn. Were they going to be allowed—?

She turned to Grayson to ask but his cerulean gaze was aimed over her shoulder…on the estuary. “Ah, the new duke has arrived.”

The new…Sarah turned around and lifted her gaze to the sparkling surface of the water. What was her friend talking about? It took ten beats of her heart, but finally, oh, finally, she saw a swimmer making his way to the shore.

Conn? “Conn?” she practically screamed, lifted her skirts around her ankles, and took off running. Behind her, Grayson or Aria said something. She barely heard. She did not know how to swim, but she wouldn’t let a thing like water stop her.

She rushed into the depths and almost reached up to her knees before she went down, her skirts tangled around her ankles.

She fought them and rose back up. Behind her, Grayson called out, ordering her to return before she drowned.

But she could see Conn smiling at her, swimming harder, closer, so instead of stopping, she moved with even more determination.

Someone grasped her wrist from behind. It was Grayson, keeping her from falling again.

But she didn’t take her eyes off the swimmer approaching.

Conn. Conn. The new duke. Then, he was staying.

Her heart soared within her and as he reached her, she pulled free of her friend’s hand and let herself fall into Connall Darling’s waiting arms.

The End